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Serena Williams Makes Tennis History, Google Fails to Acknowledge It

On Saturday, Serena Williams beat Angelique Kerber at the Wimbledon final and took home her 22nd Grand Slam title. She is now tied with Steffi Graf, who also achieved 22 majors throughout her career, as the tennis player with the most Grand Slams in the Open era of tennis. (Grand Slam titles are wins at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open championships.)

But strangely enough, when you Google “Tennis Player With the Most Grand Slams,” Serena Williams or Steffi Graf are nowhere to be found in the results page. Instead, Roger Federer shows up at the very top of the page, along with a photo of the Swiss tennis player and the caption: “Roger Federer has won 17 major singles titles—the most ever by any man in history.” Hey, at least Google made the distinction.

Photo: Courtesy of Serena Williams / @serenawilliams

While Federer does hold the Grand Slam record for a male tennis player, he trails Williams and Graf by five Grand Slam titles. So why the prime time spot? It’s also worth noting, Federer is behind other Open-era female tennis players, including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, both of whom have 18 Grand Slam wins to their names.

Further investigation revealed Google results for other tennis-related searches also turned up with a hint of gender bias. If you look up “Best Tennis Players” the top images on the screen reveal, in the following order: Novak Djokovic, Federer, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Andy Murray, and, in sixth place, Serena Williams. (For some perspective, Murray, who also won Wimbledon over the weekend, has only achieved three major titles in his career.)

Photo: Courtesy of Serena Williams / @serenawilliams

During a press conference last Thursday, a reporter asked Williams what she thought about when people said that she was going to go down as one of the greatest female athletes of all time. “I prefer the word ‘one of the greatest athletes of all time,’ ” she responded. It’s time for Google to catch up, too.